Background

Wakeham & Associates Marketing, Inc. was retained by the City of Toronto’s Exhibition Place to conduct a sales campaign for the naming rights for a new state-of-the-art conference centre to be built within the façade of the historic Automotive Building. The multi-million dollar venue will open in September, 2009.

Objectives

• To maximize potential revenue from the sale of naming rights
• To secure a naming rights sponsor that shared the brand attributes of Exhibition Place; that added value to the user experience at the venue; and that reinforced the green branding of this LEED-designated venue.

Strategies

• Targeted and presented to a select group of Toronto-based companies in a few pre-determined categories, focusing on those that had shown progressive approaches to greening their companies.
• Built a matrix of rights and benefits that would allow these brands the opportunity to integrate their products/services into the venue and to maximize their interaction with the venue’s patrons.
• Sought to maximize the technological capabilities at the venue by approaching leaders in the connectivity/telephony sectors.

Solutions

• Approached Allstream with a fully integrated naming rights partnership for the Conference Centre. Allstream is a division of MTS of Winnipeg, MB.
• Worked with Allstream to integrate its telephony products and services throughout the building, making the venue the most advanced of its kind in North America.

Results

• Finalized a ten year naming rights agreements with Allstream, resulting in over $5.2 million in revenue for the project.